A WOMAN in her 80s forced to take a 350-mile round trip by taxi for a cancer test yesterday had her appointment cancelled en route.

Yesterday morning Janet Williams set out from Aberffraw with her daughter for the four-hour journey to a clinic in Cheltenham.

Having reached the Colwyn Bay area, they were just about to call the clinic to check the test was going ahead when their mobile phone rang and they were shocked to be told it wasn’t.

Last night Alison said the whole experience was adding to her 83-year-old mother’s stress.

Mrs Williams had been told by doctors at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor, to go all the way to the Positron clinic in Gloucestershire to establish whether she had a tumour on her lung.

The trip was set to cost the NHS £300 in taxi fares alone.

The Linton House Clinic is one of just four centres in Britain which can carry out Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans which can identify cancer earlier than other imaging technologies.

The test was cancelled because the clinic did not have enough tracer, the radioactive material injected into patients, to carry out all the tests planned yesterday.

Alison said: “My mother was told by doctors at Ysbyty Gwynedd last week there was something in the lung and that might be a tumour but their tests were inconclusive.

“It could be cancer or it might not be but we don’t know yet. My mother was pleased the PET scan was arranged so quickly because she is worried about what might happen and cancelling the test while we were on the way just adds to the stress she is under.

“In addition to that I have had to take two days off work, and the taxi driver will have to be paid twice now. It’s just a waste of money.”

After calling the clinic Alison was initially told her mother’s test had been rescheduled for Thursday but now she hopes the test will be carried out today.

“I was afraid something like that might happen and gave the clinic my mobile phone number. We’ve heard of one patient from Anglesey arriving at the clinic and being told the test had been cancelled. I didn’t want that happening to my mother,” she said.

“I was going to call the clinic during our first stop which was only a few minutes away but the clinic beat me to it when we were near Colwyn Bay.

“We were back at my mother’s home just after 9am. I’m hoping we get further down the road today,” she added.

Linton Clinic radiographer Nigel Benettar apologised for the inconvenience, but stressed that staff had alerted Mrs Williams as soon as they realised the test could not be carried out.

He told the Daily Post that only a few plants have the facilities to make the tracer they require to carry out the tests.

“When I arrived this morning I realised we only had enough tracer to last us until 11am. I didn’t want Mrs Williams to travel all the way for nothing so rang to alert her. Its very unfortunate but this situation sometimes happens to all the centres.”

A Health Commission Wales spokesman said: “While we cannot comment on individual cases, we understand that waiting for an important scan can be a difficult time.”